


Strange Bedfellows

by TheDastardlyDuo



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice: The Musical
Genre: Animal Transformation, Blood Pacts, Consent, Demonic Possession, Demons, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Gen, Health food, Jealousy, LYDIA IS AN ADULT, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Violence, Omnipotent Third Person, Pop Culture, Prostitution, RP format, Slow Burn, The Netherworld, The seven deadly sins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-11 07:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18426276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDastardlyDuo/pseuds/TheDastardlyDuo
Summary: 5 years since the events of Beetlejuice, Lydia Deetz and the ghost with the most have struck up an unlikely partnership. One that might even keep the conniving bio-exorcist in check.But as tensions run high with a new boy in the picture and parents breathing down her neck, she might yet learn the meaning of the old adage: "You can’t keep a good ghoul down". A tale chock-full of snakes, specters, and Satan, featuring a fashionable fortune teller, several beleaguered bartenders and vengeful prostitutes from another dimension...this is a new adventure Lydia Deetz won’t soon forget.P.S. Every chapter is themed around either one of the seven deadly sins or one of the seven heavenly virtues.





	1. Envy

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! What you are about to read is the combined work of Liv Wisely (@rock-and-roll-and-rats on Tumblr) for Betelgeuse's perspective and a friend for Lydia's over the course of a three-month period. We have worked so hard on this day and night, and are thrilled to finally let it see the light of day. 
> 
> Just a quick note before we start: This fanfiction is written in Omnipotent Third Person, which is an unusual way of writing and might appear strange if you haven't read it before. 
> 
> Essentially, instead of just being able to hear the perspectives of one character like in typical third person (Ex: Harry Potter, you can only hear Harry's thoughts, not Ron's), in THIS story, both characters' thoughts and feelings are open to the reader. 
> 
> ( Some call this tactic 'head hopping'. )

It had been many years since Lydia Deetz had met and defeated the demon Betelgeuse. Following that chaotic time after the death of her mother and the realization that ghosts truly existed, Lydia had worked to ensure that the Maitlands would be left safely in peace from any future buyers, as well as that Betelgeuse remained powerless in wreaking havoc upon the world of the living. She’d graduated with honors, moved out of the house she’d shared with her father and Delia, and taken up her own modest residence on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Peaceful Pines, with a blissfully miniscule number of neighbors she was forced to socialize with on occasion. 

While taking classes here and there at the local community college in her free time, Lydia had secured a job at Rumpelstiltskin, the local metaphysical shop with a surprisingly selective pool of staff and a blessedly obscure attraction that limited the stereotypically “normal” customers frequenting its shelves to those who collected crystals for their “spiritual nourishment” and the few who were just fond of their variety of soaps made in-house. Gothic and whimsical, Lydia couldn’t have been more satisfied with her place of work, even if it meant having to be frustratingly pleasant and receptive to awkward conversations with chatty customers. 

Presently, she was one of only two individuals left on the premises working the closing shift, which had just ended at the stroke of nine p.m. Moving to the front door, locking it, and flipping the sign in the window from “OPEN” to “CLOSED”, Lydia huffed out a tired sigh of relief. Her coworker, Vincent, finished up with the till and followed her out the back entrance as she slipped her coat on over the black tunic-style turtleneck she wore. 

“Busy day, huh?” Vincent offered her a nervous smile, pulling up the hood of his jacket against the rain as he fished for his keys in his pocket. 

“It always is before Halloween,” Lydia replied with a casual shrug, wrinkling her nose at the rain and silently cursing the fact that she would be well-acquainted with it by the time she arrived home, given the fact that her only mode of transportation was a bike. “Shit.” 

Alright, well. Maybe she wasn’t entirely silent about it.

Vincent seemed to perk up a little, glancing between the ratty black bike chained in front of the lot and back to her. “Want a ride? It’s no trouble at all, really — wouldn’t want to get drenched and miss out on a Halloween party this weekend, right?”

Lydia eyed his truck — nothing fancy, but it had enough storage in the back for her bike. She hesitated, mulling over her options, but finally consented with a defeated nod. “Sure, I’d appreciate it, if it’s no problem.”

After loading her bike and driving in silence so heavy and awkward she found herself eyeing the handle on her door on more than one occasion, they finally reached her place, the rain officially coming down much harder than before. Vincent was nervously fidgeting at the wheel, clearly with something on his mind.

“Thanks, Vince. I really owe you one.” She opened the door, finding that the din of the downpour made it difficult to make out her coworker’s response. Something about...dinner? Feeling a flutter of panic in her chest, she shut the door and quickly hauled her bike out of the truck’s bed, pretending she hadn’t been able to understand him. Which, technically, wasn’t a full lie. Just a tiny, partial one. 

To her dismay, however, he followed her to the front door, the cloth hood of his jacket hiked up uselessly against the storm. “I asked if we could, uh, grab dinner? Maybe? Sometime?” 

“Let’s talk about the details another time,” she answered quickly, her hand hovering on the doorknob. “We’ll catch our deaths otherwise. See you next week!”

Without waiting for his response, Lydia unlocked her front door and escaped inside, giving him a half-hearted wave through the window before turning away and dropping her bag on on the floor with a strangled, exhausted exhale and ignoring the rivulets of water running off her soaked form and beginning to dampen the rug beneath her feet. Dumping her coat, she shuddered when she realized it had been too lightweight to prevent the clothes beneath from being soaked as well.

“Fantastic luck,” she muttered to herself, grateful she had at least decided to wear her hair up that morning.

Meanwhile…

Like most young adults fresh out of schooling, Lydia Deetz had a roommate. And like most roommates, he could be a bit of a handful. Unsanitary, loud, occasionally bringing people over you didn't approve of. Eternally late on rent. Always boozing and eating your snacks. The normal traits were to be expected. However, unlike most roommates, Lydia's roommate was a demon from hell. And not in a figurative way. 

Betelgeuse watched the thunder and lighting as the rain beat down, his hands and pointed nose pressed to the glass of the window. He stared out into the dying light with his own protuberant, dead eyes; hooded, shadowed, and unblinking. Feeling the cold of the outside chill his decaying fingertips. 

From his place in the attic of Lydia's little ramshackle flat, he could sit for hours and watch the mortal world go by. Criss-crossed on the window sill, his dangling legs folded underneath him, perched like a vulture, surveying the road in silence. Watching their little, stupid, living lives carry on.

A woman getting groceries from the store,

_Stupid living, needing to eat._

A man getting medicine from the pharmacy,

_Stupid living, needing to breathe._

Two sweethearts exchanging sweet nothings in an alley,

_Stupid living and their stupid need for stupid emotional fulfillment and stupid reciprocated advances._

Occasionally he had the pleasure of a small child or two catching him staring from down below. Often they screamed, ran, or held tighter to their mother's hand, pointing to the window and babbling about a glow-eyed monster: ‘I saw him, mama, I swear I did!’

Some children did nothing at all. Some children smiled at him. 

He liked them the best. They reminded him of someone. 

At exactly 9:30, the time Lydia always came home, Betelgeuse was surprised not to see her wheel up on her little black bike. Doubly surprised was he to instead see a rusty old truck pull up with her bike in the back, and Lydia emerging from it.  
Accompanied by a young man.  
The demon's yellow, snakelike eyes narrowed. 

_What on earth or under it did HE think he was doing? Talking to some other fella's gal? Trying to cop a feel on Lydia, was he? Dumb little, testing piece of mortal shit-_

He stopped himself.  
Lydia had scolded him about this.  
Surely it was nothing. Hell, it wasn't any of his business anyway. What was he doing, being possessive? Like she was his to keep. Like she was his to start with. 

_It was him that was kept cooped up in here anyhow…_

Yet his eyes followed the man as he drove away, and though he hadn't intended it, a nail appeared on the road in front of the truck, puncturing the tire as it left.

As the front door opened with its usual sinister jingle of doorbells, Betelgeuse turned his head sharply like a bloodhound. Or more like an owl, maybe, as it turned 180 degrees behind him. With a cracking and popping of an ancient skeleton, the rest of his body swiveled around to join it, and he leapt from the ledge and dashed to the trapdoor, pausing only for a moment to think of his next transformation. 

Every day after work, he made a point out of greeting her as a different creature. It had started by accident, as one day he had been, ahem, exploring himself with all the benefits a long giraffe neck could give you, but soon it had become a little game in and of itself between them. Last week's 10-foot alligator had been an enormous success. 

Lydia, in her moment of rain-drenched misery, had completely forgotten about the routine Betelgeuse had established over the past few weeks in which he’d greet her at the door as a different wildly-unexpected creature. Her only warning was the rapid sound of footsteps ( _paw-steps?_ ) tumbling wildly down the stairs. 

Tripping over its moldy paws, a mangey, flea-bitten old white dog had bounded down to meet Lydia, tongue lolling and yellow eyes facing opposite directions. 

Lydia had just enough time to lift her head and witness the most chaotic clash of the endearing and the grotesque bundled up with patchy white fur hurtling toward her before he made impact. The dog pawed at Lydia's arms as she set down her things, even chancing a disgusting lick to get some rainwater off her creamy pale cheek, which immediately made her turn her head, straining her neck to evade his reach. 

"You're back, you're back, you're back!"

The excitement in the demon’s voice made Lydia feel comforted and warm despite the chill of the clothes she wore, though she never would have admitted the fact to his face. Lydia couldn’t help but smile, her exhaustion ebbing away to be replaced instead by an oddly fond sort of amusement. Lifting fingers adorned with a small assortment of rings of different designs, she managed to push his flea-bitten snout away with a muffled laugh she’d tried and failed to conceal. 

“Get off, you mutt!” she protested, though the laughter dancing in her dark brown gaze directly contradicted any scolding tone she might have been attempting. “I’m soaked! I don’t need my flat smelling like wet dog, let alone the wet, rotting corpse of a dog.” 

No matter how grueling her day at work happened to be, no matter how many customers decided that it was within their right to be rude and brutish, it was almost certain that at least one person would be around to greet her with a little well-needed positivity. Even if that person wasn’t among the living. And had a penchant for being a pain in the ass when the whim struck him. 

After all, leaving a demon alone in an attic all day came with the fact that he would be undoubtedly bored and highly prone to mischief when left alone. 

The musty hound allowed himself to be manhandled and flopped onto his back on the rug, wriggling excitedly. When no tummy rubs came his way, the demon huffed and skittered humbly to his feet. 

Once out of her soggy boots and left in socks that were wondrously dry and cozy, Lydia brushed past him to retrieve a kettle from the kitchen, immediately filling it with water to boil.

When this task was prepared, she stepped into the laundry room, purposefully closing the door to give herself privacy while she quickly peeled off the drenched turtleneck and slipped into a dry, oversized t-shirt instead, grabbing a towel on her way out and undoing her messy bun to allow her damp hair to fall pitifully around her shoulders. 

“I’ve really gotta save up for a car. That bike is going to be the death of me.”

When Lydia emerged again from the laundry room, a scruffy, pinstriped man stood in the dog's place, still scratching a few fleas out of his grizzled five o'clock shadow and unkempt wires of black-green hair. 

He was short for the average man, but still had a few inches on his friend, though some that was made by his enormous coiffeur. It was an impressive explosion that gave him the look of someone who had stuck a fork in an electrical socket, but it could occasionally be tamed into something almost presentable. As of now, it was more ruffled in front and sleek in the back, like a teenage boy with bedhead or a severely brain-damaged 50s greaser. Or maybe a middle-aged rock star. 

His legs were lanky and made up most of his height, meeting up in the middle to a portly beer belly at his midriff. His suit, the go-to for the majority of his casual apparel, was withered and stained with age, and poorly tailored a size too small, which was strange, assuming he had conjured the thing himself. The pockets on his pants seemed to be perpetually filled with all manner of atrocious accoutrement, the most disgusting of all being his pale and, often, wandering hands. 

His posture always slumped and led by his pelvis, going the impression that underworld was always attempting to pull him back under by the genitals. 

His visage declared a man in perhaps his mid-thirties, but in reality, his years stretched far back into oblivion. It was impossible to gauge how old he really was. Sometimes he spoke of Mesopotamia as if he had been really present, other times he talked about a childhood spent playing ball with Al Capone. You could never be sure when he was pulling your leg or not.

It seemed to be the only thing he never candidly spoke of, his age. 

Which was striking. 

Because besides that, he did a LOT of talking. 

"A car?" The demon cocked a caterpillar eyebrow as he followed Lydia into the kitchen across the hall. "What d'you need a car for? I've told you already, if you're ever in need of a noble steed, I know a guy.” He blew out his lips like a horse. 

From the counter, he snatched a box of Sugar Bombs and began to dig his grotty fingers in and out of it. He spoke between bites with his mouth full. "Mmpf. Or maybe a dragon. I've done those. Or a hippopotamus. Or maybe mom could hire you a hearse! Did I ever tell you about the time I chauffeured for Marilyn Monroe, great story, she had died two months before and I didn’t technically have a license-" 

As Betelgeuse began rambling away on the topic of alternative modes of transportation that would certainly give her more of a reputation in town than “eccentric adult woman still in a goth phase”, Lydia lifted her hair and arranged the towel over her shoulders to prevent another forced change of attire, feeling her jaw tighten a little as he spoke. While his tone was playful and energetic, she knew full well that there was concrete sincerity to his desire to get out of her pathetically small residence, whether it was to truly escort her to work or to simply get a chance of scenery. She refrained from interrupting him, instead focusing on listening and quietly pouring her tea before perching herself upon one of the two chairs at the table, plenty aware of the expression written plainly across her face as she prepared to discourage him yet again, and to remind him of the lengthy list of reasons why he needed to stay put. 

The demon’s face fell and he trailed off under the stare of the woman across from him. 

Rules were rules. 

_Did he dare?_

It was risky, but he decided it might be worth discussing again…

"Babes, I been thinking about this... deal, we got going and I-" 

Lydia immediately opened her mouth to interrupt him before he could manage to find the words that might finally convince her to relax the grip she’d held on his leash for so long, but he caught onto her intentions and rushed to finish. 

"I know we talked about it! I get to stay on the surface, you signed the pact and all that, but, well, I just can't stand being cooped up in this ol' house all the time! I mean what's the POINT-"

He noticed himself raising his voice and quickly replaced it with a more convincing timbre. 

'What's the _point_ of getting to go on the surface if you can't GO anywhere or DO anything." 

He threw up his hands in exasperation. 

"When I signed on with you, alright, we both know I was in a bad place.”

Lydia’s shoulders sagged with defeat as she pressed her lips together, fingers wrapped around the base of the steaming mug in front of her and resigned herself to hearing him out.

“I was at the end of my rope. The old lady was gonna have me sentenced to three more millennia in civil service, A-Dog and B-Town weren't exactly given' me stellar reviews, what choice did I have? But I did think that in this.. servitude...eternal..bargain...thingy, I would at least be able to have a BIT of free will, ya know? We agreed!" 

As Betelgeuse began to get more heated, his hands making large gestures and his voice warring between rising and remaining civil and smooth, Lydia ignored the fleeting impulse to lean back out of range, instead stubbornly keeping her ground and taking a measured sip of tea to boot. The pair had long since passed the days where she had ever had anything to fear from the demon, but a quiet voice in the back of her head, the voice of her younger sixteen-year-old self, cautioned her against allowing herself to completely forget that this man was a wolf in sheep’s clothes, even if the suit was ragged and his jokes ridiculously goofy. It was far too easy to make that slip, to be lulled into the sense that he’d not once had every reason to be feared by those who got on his bad side.

Not that he didn’t still possess that instinct, dormant yet waiting for the right opportunity to pounce. 

The burning reason why giving him that inch of rope could risk losing a mile, with a smoldering wreck marking every miserable yard.

Blinking herself out of her own grim thoughts, she focused once more as he prepared to repeat the pact they had agreed upon all that time ago. 

Begrudgingly, as if the words felt disgusting in his mouth, Betelgeuse recited the satanic pact. 

_"Henceforth I summon thee from grave,_  
_To serve but me and be my slave,_  
_And for all of eternity_  
_Shalt thou, demon, be sworn to me._

_To have, hold, defend and amuse,_  
_Obey the orders that I choose,_  
_And in RETURN-"_

He emphasized the final line. 

_"If pleased I be,  
Thy freedom I return to thee!"_

He gestured emphatically. 

"I mean, come on, it's there in black and white. Well, sheepskin scroll, anyway. It was you me, and The Big Man himself as a witness." He mimed little devil's horns on either side of his head with his fingers. 

He sighed and shifted tentatively on both feet, looking at his sneakers. 

"It's been a good few years, where's the harm in a little time out?! What's the worst that could possibly happen!" 

Right on cue, thunder roared. Betelgeuse shrank back a little further in his slump. He gave Lydia a smarmy little pout. 

"I promise to be a good boy. " He lolled his tongue lasciviously, putting his hands up to resemble paws and cocking his head to one side.

“Careful, Betelgeuse. I thought we’d watched enough horror films for you to know better than that. ‘What’s the worst that could happen’ is the trope that releases the monster and ends with a body count.” She gave him a teasing look, keeping her tone lighthearted, and took another casual drink of her tea. 

“Hey, releasing the monster ain’t all that bad…turned alright for you.”  
He mumbled, a poor attempt at deflection. 

There was a brief pause. 

For a moment he simply stood. Waiting. Eyes wide with silent apprehension.

Unable to come up with anything concrete after delving into her thoughts once more, Lydia gave a heavy sigh, folding her arms in front of her chest and leaning back. 

“Fine, we can give it a shot.”

As she spoke, a smile contorted its way onto the face of the ghost before her, so heinous and maniacal and frighteningly GENUINE that it would've sent any rational person screaming to the hills. Though he was no longer in the form of a dog, you could almost see his ears prick up. He clapped his hands together and clasped them emphatically. 

"Ya mean it?" 

Dashing forward as she was still attempting to make an ultimatum, the demon pounced upon her in a suffocating, mildew-smelling tackle-hug that lifted her clean off the ground. He picked her up and swirled her, squealing, in his arms.

Once more, Lydia found herself with her arms full of Demon, though this time she was significantly dwarfed by his humanoid form rather than that of a canine. Knocked inelegantly from her perch at the table, she was immensely grateful that she’d already released her hold on her very-breakable mug as she managed to free her arms, at least, from his enthusiastic embrace. When he lifted her clean off the ground to spin around the kitchen, she frantically clutched onto whatever purchase she could immediately find on his striped suit, letting out a high-pitched, indignant exclamation of surprise and feeling the towel slip to the floor to give her damp, black hair free reign.

"I knew you'd see it my way! You're the best! I won't let you down, you'll see!" Finally setting her down, he attacked her with a barrage of peppered kisses all over her forehead and face. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." 

She relaxed once her feet had been granted purchase on the linoleum, her mind still buzzing dizzyingly and her chest filled with inexplicably giddy energy, though not entirely at the fault of the surroundings that had whirled through her vision. Forced to keep a grip on the sleeves of his suit while she recovered her bearings, she could no longer fight the ghost of a smile that bloomed at her lips. While Betelgeuse might’ve felt as if he needed to appear in the form of an affectionate mutt to be endearing in her eyes, she felt just as fond of this form as any he chose, though the thought had not consciously crossed her mind.

Taken off-guard for the second time by the barrage of kisses she found herself receiving upon her forehead and cheeks, Lydia laughed and turned her face from his similarly to the way she’d attempted to evade his canid kiss minutes earlier. The motion, however, had unintentionally granted him access to her neck. 

Without warning, the demon leaned over and gave it a fierce, snarling nip, which understandably irked her out of complacency. 

Lydia froze in his arms until his teeth were safely away from her skin. Struggling to recover any coherent train of thought as her cheeks burned, she squirmed away from him, though not before reacting instinctively with a decent slap to his face. 

Surprisingly enough, the demon at least seemed to be aware of his poor judgment. He backed off sheepishly, his hand to his face where she had struck him.  
"Sorry, sorry, force of habit I guess." 

Still, even a slap could not wipe the sinister beam of mirth from his features. 

To try and regain her metaphorical footing in the conversation, the young woman laid out her terms in what she hoped was a steady voice.

“Fine! One day out of the house to convince me! But you can’t wander off on your own. That, and you’ll have to make sure you aren’t seen looking like you woke up on the wrong side of a hole six feet under, got it? And no dragons or ten-foot crocodiles in public."

He nodded obediently, wide-eyed, only half acknowledging her stern caveats to her new agreement. "Yep, yep, yeah, for sure, you got it! I'll be the best behaved dead fella you ever seen. Better! You won't get a peep of trouble out of me." 

His brow furrowed in confusion as she mentioned his features, however. "What do you mean?" He tilted his head, seemingly genuinely puzzled that the body of a shambling corpse would not be permissible to go out-of-doors in. 

"Wha- how do you want me to look, Clark Gable?" A mustache appeared on his face. "'Because frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.'"  
It disappeared again. 

His Clark Gable impression quickly brought mirth back to her features, the heat in her face thankfully retreating.

“You know _I_ don’t think anything of your very obvious not-alive-ness, but it isn’t close enough to Halloween to be shambling the streets like you’re straight out of ‘Night of the Living Dead’. Breathers like nice, normal things for the nice, normal town. Unfortunately, if you want a change in scenery, you’re going to have to blend in.” 

This very clear plea for a very distinct look might as well have made a whizzing sound as it soared over his head. Her comment on his appearance seemed to have had more of an impact than he would have previously belied. 

He furrowed his brow in confusion. 

"It's the natural look! I don't wanna be deceiving, we're going to have ladies losing their hearts for me left and right as it is!" 

He gave a little frown. 

“Couldn’t I at least be a cat or something? Or maybe a rat? I’ve been working on those.” 

“It would be easier for me to explain why some random guy is with me instead of an animal if people ask questions. I would rather die than have people think I’m some kind of Snow White.”  
Yet again Lydia rained on the parade with a competent answer.

Betelgeuse frowned "What do you want from me?"

Lydia hummed in thought, sighing. Her head tilted inquisitively as she tried to imagine what he might have looked like without the inarguably undead details of his features. 

“If you wanted to pretend you were alive for a day, what would you want yourself to look like? Inconspicuous, with less of the mold and mildew. Maybe clothes you don’t look like you were buried in. You’d still be with me, so you wouldn’t have to be quite as...ah... _Maitland-esque_. People dye their hair all the time — green’s bizarre, but in a mortals-have-bland-taste way. Not an ‘Eek! This is clearly a demon from hell!’ way…”

Betelgeuse scratched his stubbled chin and pondered her query for a bit, his countenance troubled slightly amid his joy.

He was so comfortable in his current state that he had never really considered what his preferred appearance might be, if he could go back and change it all. 

When you could shapeshift, no matter what body you put on, there was always a body that felt like 'home'. And what other would he choose than his own? He was comfortable in it. Like an old shoe. And similarly smelly. 

Betelgeuse bit his lip, looking, in a strange way, suddenly vulnerable. 

"What...would you want me to look like?" 

He’d never contemplated it. What she might want in a man. The various features that might have made their marriage more than a marriage of inconvenience.  
He was, well, dead. That could not be denied. And though the girls at Dante's got a kick out of claw-like fingernails and a forked, serpentine tongue (especially the tongue), Lydia, the mature, adult Lydia, made him feel...inadequate somehow. 

_Could she want him the way he was?_

Of course not. She wanted 'normal', perish the thought.

_She wanted a fella with a truck..._

Amid his inner musings, his self-consciousness had managed to bleed through.

Even with his usual gruff voice, the result of smoking for half a millennia ("I quit in 1905"), the innocence of his tone in his question caught Lydia off guard.  
The fragile openness in Betelgeuse’s expression.  
There had been many occasions in which the demon had feigned innocent and naivete in order to get under her skin and she had learned to notice when he’d put up a facade. This, some quiet instinct urged, was not one of those instances. No, this had a shard of something genuine in it, though what that could be was beyond her understanding. Deciding to push the thought to the back of her mind to assess at a different time, she focused instead upon the present moment. 

 

His beady eyes locked on hers. Casually, but with a curious little smirk in them.  
"You tell me, I'm _your_ demon after all." He teased at the word 'your'.  
Wondering what the effect would be when he said it. 

The insinuation of her possession of him, that roguish little ‘your’ he’d stuck before his title was a little like an electric shock, her dark eyes widening perceptibly before she shook her head, a faint smirk of her own blooming at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve never taken you to be the type who would let anyone presume to think they have any ownership over you, Betelgeuse, let alone me.” 

Betelgeuse weaved his head noncommittally to and fro.  
"Well, okay, I mean, It's not, like, well, GEE, I didn't mean, It's not really as if-" He trailed off, looking almost bashful. 

It always threw him for a loop when Lydia so brazenly responded to his little jabs and japes.  
When she had been a child, he had always deftly avoided them to some degree. The look of fear and distrust in her eyes towards the end was enough to make any Ghost with the Most feel, well, mostly ghosted.  
But as of late they had begun to feel comfortable enough with each other to strike up what almost felt like a playful banter.  
Lydia had so much courage, even when she was small. Whatever he said, she was the only person he'd ever met, except maybe Juno, who wasn't afraid to whip it right back in his face. She was quick. And clever. And sharp, sometimes cutting.  
She was never the kind of person you could get away with muttering about. 

His stammering once again reached a standstill. He gestured vaguely at his clothes again with the hand that wasn’t jammed in his filthy pocket. 

Brushing all teasing aside, Lydia leaned her weight back against the kitchen counter, a finger tapping her cheek as she hummed softly in thought, mulling briefly over an answer to his challenge. 

The demon did his best, despite his greatest instincts, to straighten up to full height in a defiant manner as he was given an appraising once-over. His eyes darted to follow hers shiftily as she scrutinized his clothes and features. 

Another pause. 

The suspense lingered in the room until she spoke again. 

“I don’t think I’d change much, B.J.”

Her answer took the demon pleasantly by surprise. His lip twitched. "Oh?"

Well of course. He was so handsome. What did he expect? How could she change anything? What can you change about perfection?  
Truly, really, he had never been worried for a second. Not even one.  
Who cared what she thought anyway. What, was she going to tell him what he already knew?  
Why did he feel so relieved?  
What was there to be relieved about?  
What was this lightness in his chest? 

_Stop that._  
He warned himself.  
_Cut that shit out this minute._

His attention snapped back to her when she continued. 

“If you made your pallor a bit less corpse-like and made sure you looked human...namely the tongue, we don’t have any modifications quite like that…” She stepped forward, unabashedly entering his personal space to squint up at him, dramatically appraising his appearance. 

He did his best not to shrink backward as she drew nearer. She had such a presiding, dominant force about her. The way she held her head high. The way she looked at him. Right in the eyes. Like a challenge.  
With what little magical sensing he picked up down in hell, he could tell she had a dark, powerful, primitive force about her, of unforeseen proportions. 

What do children fear? The Bogeyman. What does the Bogeyman fear? Lydia Deetz. 

“Your hair a little less dead-” 

The towering green monolith seemed to visibly droop slightly.  
Betelgeuse chuckled.  
"Aw, babes, you hurt its feelings." 

Lydia reached out to grab one of his hands in both of her own, nodding over her observation of the unusual ends of his fingers. She was so gentle and tender, unflinching. Like a lion tamer. As if she knew he wouldn't dare hurt her. And damn it, she was right as always. 

“-maybe something more mortal here.”

The demon wiggled his rosy digits. 

Lydia lifted her head from her inspection to look up at him from the shorter end of their height difference. 

“Hm...I don’t know, Beej. I’ve never thought about how you might’ve looked in your past life. I guess I’m pretty attached to your demon-ness...but you remember, right? I’m strange and unusual, too. They aren’t like us out there, so we have to be a little less so for their benefit. That’s what sucks about humans.”

"Lot more than that sucks about humans." He grinned. "Cept for you, a course."

_Attached to my demon-ness. My demonity. My demonitude. She's ATTACHED to it._

He took his hands back from her touch and put them back in his pockets, stepping back from her a few steps. Looking away. At he cereal. At the counter. At her mug. At the floor. 

“Right! Um.” He began to mutter to himself, tapping his fingers. "Hair, tongue, fingers, clothes. Hair tongue, fingers- notes taken!" 

He gave a little, awkward salute. 

"I'll just. Uh, implement the implementations. Implement the...yeah." 

There was a short, awkward silence. 

With a loud crack, the demon disappeared, leaving Lydia alone in the unlit kitchen. 

Upstairs in the attic, there was a great deal of frantic pacing and muttering.  
The trap door was locked.

The sounds continued all night long.


	2. Charity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a dog is tongue-kissed, Shrek is referenced, and Betelgeuse gets a tramp stamp.

The next morning, Lydia had awoken to the sound of her alarm blaring, interrupting the threads of a dream that was already swiftly fading from her consciousness. Even when she wasn’t working or attending an obligation of some other sort, she’d been forced to use an alarm in order to ensure she wouldn’t spend the entire day dozing the light away. She was truly far more of a night owl than an early bird, worms be damned if she had her way. Unfortunately for her, American society had deeply ingrained the opposite notion into its values, forcing her to be the one to cope and adapt.

Trudging blearily around her bedroom, she robotically moved through her morning routines, getting dressed and applying the casual amount of makeup she used on an everyday basis — nothing fancy or extreme, nothing for any benefit but her own aesthetics. When finished with this task, she finally left her room and trailed her way to the kitchen, tying her dark hair into one of her typical messy buns as she descended the stairs.

She was mildly surprised when she didn’t happen upon Betelgeuse in the kitchen elbow-deep in a box of sugary cereal, but the demon wasn’t exactly of the predictable sort (and would be utterly offended by any insinuation that he was, she was certain). Not putting much thought or concern toward his whereabouts — he might’ve been trapped in her house, but he was a free spirit through and through — Lydia began to prepare her own breakfast of eggs and toast, trying to blink the lingering bleariness from her eyes, unable to rub them as she wanted due to the makeup she’d applied.

When Betelgeuse had disappeared into the attic the night before, she’d heard his pacing right up until she’d fallen asleep. Idly, she wondered if that restlessness had kept him preoccupied in such a state long after she’d succumbed to the mortal need to sleep. Knowing her demon, that answer was just as likely as any number of them, all ranging from mundane to absolutely bizarre. 

Some things never change, no matter how much time passed.

But If Betelgeuse wasn't downstairs in the morning, it certainly wasn't for sleeping in...

It was true, demons didn't sleep, being both undead and nocturnal creatures by nature, but that didn't mean they were incapable of it. Sometimes for sheer boredom he would amuse himself with slumber. Crossing one arm over the other as if in the crypt, and hanging bat-like from the rafters, or sometimes floating in midair for kicks, drooling onto the floor and muttering about the thick, powerful thighs of a vampire woman. 

Not last night though. 

All through the hours he had spent scrutinizing every hairy, moss-growing inch of his appearance. 

Why? He had no idea. He had slim-to-never had a time in his life where he had been so anxious to impress. To put his powers to the test.  
To be the very best. Like no one ever was- Okay enough of that. 

All dated pop culture references aside, demon magic wasn't the sort of thing you applied yourself for.  
It just sort of...happened. Like when a duckling is born with the knowledge that it will eventually learn to fly. 

A very ugly duckling in this case. 

After a few million years you got used to being able to think something and have it happen. To bend reality in a way that mortals merely dreamt of.  
It became almost mundane. 

Some ghosts liked to play up the showmanship. Fog, flickering lamps, and power over light and shadow. Billowing silks and unearthly howls.  
That wasn't him. 

He was down and dirty. What got the job done.  
He spent his un-life in the body he was born in, used his transformative magic on the basis of routine repairs (gangrene is a BITCH). 

He could change shape when necessary. Nothing special. 

Picturing a mouse and becoming a mouse was simple. Commonplace. There was no need to look like the world's best mouse, or the most accurate mouse. Or a mouse that wasn't striped and green-tinted. You wanted a mouse. You fuckin’ got one. 

It got the job done. 

That was all he’d ever cared for. 

And thus, he had never felt so crummy and out of place as he had all night, fussing over details. 

A mole there. A hair out of place. A jagged tooth that looked just a bit too unearthly. His skin just a shade too blanched and pale. A swatch of moss between his shoulder blades that godDAMNIT if he could just REACH- 

Even when he'd had the basics done he spent the last wee hours of the morning doubting all of his previous choices. Going back and changing it all over again. Plenty of swearing. 

He spent a long, quiet smoke break on the roof at the break of dawn. 

Remembering, this was for _Lydia_. For his freedom. It was the only thing that could keep his resentment at bay. He promised himself a nice, long dirt bath once all was said and done.

But for now? Well, it was what it was. 

Betelgeuse appeared silently, sitting cross-legged like a little boy on the counter behind Lydia as she ate her breakfast. He watched her for a moment. 

_”Ahem.”_

Lost in thought, Lydia hadn’t noticed Betelgeuse appear. Caught completely off-guard, the young woman found herself giving an embarrassing cry of surprise, dropping her utensil with a metallic clatter and whirling around to face him, one pale hand hovering over her rapid heartbeat.

The demon chuckled low. "Fuckin' antichrist, you scared us both. Look at you, you're getting pretty good at it." 

His words fell on deaf ears, Lydia too preoccupied with taking in the jarring sight before her to conjure up a response to his lighthearted quip.  
“Betelgeuse, you…”

He was certainly a sight to behold.

Facially, he looked... pleasant. And in doing so, highly disturbing.  
The first thing one was likely to notice was his eyes, for they still glowed yellow and acidic, even in the shape of small, human irises. Around them was still dark, black and sunken, like a man who had been on far too many benders, and then on top of that, slept overnight wearing 'guyliner'.  
These eyes gleamed behind a pair of enormous, geeky looking 1970s-era spectacles. The glass was cracked in the left lens. 

He looked somehow younger, but not by much. Like a 30-year-old who had lived the last 7 years of his life homeless, perhaps. Or even maybe a 28-year-old who was addicted to heroin and enjoyed sticking his head in vats of turpentine. 

His skin was waxy and pale, but as if he were deathly ill and had rarely seen the sun, rather than if the blood had been drained from his very flesh. All traces of any creeping plant-like growth had seemingly dispersed, but there were splotches of discoloration all over him, as if the moss had simply receded just beneath his skin, leaving the surface like a sun-bleached rock, newly uncovered in places. 

His fingernails were blunted and almost receding. Looking suspiciously as though someone had chewed them to the quick out of nerves the night before, and had not in fact used magic at all. 

Seeing the demon looking so human --- still with the bizarre touches and small details that made him undeniably himself --- was a disorienting experience for Lydia, to say the least. Not because he looked unappealing; he’d made these features in such a way that she was certain there would be a few individuals he might catch the eye of. No, the small thought that passed through her mind that surprised her above all else was the one that whispered her preference for the ghoul’s proper appearance, moss and all. Brushing that away swiftly without further analysis, she focused instead on observing him through the shock that was certainly clear to see upon her face. 

The glasses reminded her a little of Adam Maitland, but she wisely kept the observation to herself, hopefully concealing the little amused quirk of the corner of her lips. Familiarity was also present in the shade of his hair and the stubble that remained on his cheeks, though his skin beneath was less of its ghastly-white pallor. His yellow, feline eyes remained as they always had been, and she found herself glancing back to meet them whenever she felt disoriented in the remainder of her appraisal. 

The clothes he wore were, in contrast, even more jarring and abhorrent. 

Absolutely mismatched, both in terms of fashion and the eras he had clearly taken inspiration from. 

Shedding the pinstriped jacket of his suit, he had kept the tie and sweat-stained shirt that may have at some point been white, though the tie was immensely crooked and creased in places from tying and re-tying. 

In lieu of the suit, about his shoulders he wore a weathered black 60s biker jacket.  
The back, if observed, read "Ghoul School- Class of '69", though which '69' it was, whether 1969, 1769, 1069, or just, more likely, a fondness for the number 69, it was impossible to gather. 

His pants retained his love of pinstripes, if, albeit, more muted in their hues. They looked almost normal, except for three bullet holes at the left shin, giving a snapshot of pale, hairy legs. 

On his feet he boasted a pair of mismatched, yellowing 1930s dancing spats. 

Altogether, he looked rather like if a beatnik had woken up half dressed and robbed a jazz lounge at gunpoint for the rest of his outfit. 

To say she was delighted by his chaotic masterpiece of a choice would have been an understatement.

Betelgeuse beamed. Apparently pleased with himself, or at least making an effort to appear so. 

"Order up. One human, human-y human McLiving Man.." 

He scratched the back of his neck idly. His voice was the same. Like a crow with strep throat. Or maybe someone belching into a tin can. Or a drag queen that had given a blow job to a vat of radioactive material. Or a recently castrated cowboy in the middle of a frog-swallowing contest. 

He started making excuses. "I tried the tie two different ways, but then I thought, what if I just scrapped it, but then I figured, what if he's a business guy, I had this whole stupid character thing worked out, tried doing something method, ya know, get into the right headspace. Also, sorry about the glasses, are they too much? If they're too much I can-"

Finished with her observations, Lydia looked directly at him once more as he slipped into a nervous stream of explanations. Before he could lose her in the tide of his words, she quickly cut in, giving him one of her rarest smiles without consciously intending to do so. 

“It’s absolutely perfect, Beej. Peaceful Pines doesn’t know what’s about to hit it.” 

Betelgeuse kicked the floor and hung his head, grinning. "D'aw, you're just sayin'." 

In the privacy of his own head, a constant stream rang out of celebratory expletives. 

 

Finished with her food, Lydia jumped up to her feet and deposited her dishes in the sink to clean at a later time, suddenly restless to properly start what was undoubtedly going to be an incredibly interesting day. 

Turning to face her counterpart, she put her hands on her hips, the sleeves of her black dress falling over her wrists with the motion.

While she was certainly going to make sure he didn’t cause too much trouble, she found herself looking forward to this trip with a fair amount of excitement, a mischievous light dancing lively within dark eyes traced with highlights of warm honey. Even after becoming an adult, her disdain for the utter normalcy of her town remained steadfast and envisioning the light chaos that potentially awaited them was something she was strangely anticipating with a satisfied giddiness in her chest.

“Are you ready? With there being two of us, we’ll have to walk, but it won’t take too long. It’ll give you a chance to see the sights, at least.”

Ready didn’t begin to cover it. As she moved to the door, Betelgeuse rushed quickly to her side, so fast he skidded on the carpet. 

Unfortunately, in his fervor, there was a very important detail he had missed. 

A detail that 136 attempts at escape should have probably prepared him for. 

The moment he touched the door handle, it glowed red and smoke emitted from his fingers with a firecracker snap. The demon howled in pain and sucked on his wounded digits. 

At his roommate’s look of confused alarm, he gesticulated wildly. 

"The deal!" He whined. "The stupid deal. Dammit! You have to change the spell. Set the boundaries. All that."

Lydia pursed her lips, feeling a little ridiculous for not having thought of the fact that merely granting verbal permission wouldn't be official enough to actually allow Betelgeuse to leave the house.

Pacts really were a fickle thing. The circumstances of their own had been strange indeed. Even now the details were fuzzy. Quick and dirty in the dark. A spill of blood. A muttered incantation.  
Although she distinctly remembered that it wasn’t all her handiwork. 

She looked at Betelgeuse expectantly. 

“Don’t you… have to-?” 

“Oh.” Betelgeuse huffed dejectedly. “Yeah, yeah, right. Gimme a minute.” 

Rubbing his fingers together, as if sprinkling something, the demon created sparks from his fingers. A little beetle symbol with a pentagram on its back hovered in the air above his hand.  
A sigil. It glowed, receptive. 

"Go on go on. You gotta make an addendum. What I get to do. When I get back. The rules. All that stupid mumbo jumbo crap." 

His displeasure was evident in every syllable. Betelgeuse waved at the hovering insect impatiently, yellow eyes darting to the doorknob.

Lydia brushed her dark bangs from her eyes, which reflected the glowing aura of the hovering sigil he’d conjured up. 

“An addendum to our deal,” she began carefully, turning the words over in her mind to ensure she said the right ones while also cautiously phrasing herself in a way that would be difficult to pluck any loopholes from. 

She moved her gaze from the floating beetle to the demon wearing deceptively-human skin. 

“You may leave this house, but you may not roam freely.”

Betelgeuse clicked his tongue, as a teenager might upon hearing they’d just been grounded. 

“You can’t leave my sight,”

“Tch.”

“Cause any property damage,”

“Wha-”

“Or hurt anyone without my explicit permission.” 

She crossed her arms over her chest, fingers lightly curling into the fabric of the sleeves that covered her upper arms. 

“Fair enough?”

“No that is _not_ fair enough! Hang on a second.” 

Despite Betelgeuse’s own protestations, the sigil itself twitched its little antenna as if in recognition.  
It glowed brightly for a second, then disappeared.  
There was a soft sizzle. A thin trail of smoke seemed to emit from the seat of the demon’s pants.  
Betelgeuse winced visibly and inhaled a sharp breath through his serrated teeth.  
At Lydia’s look of confusion, he turned around and pulled up his shirt a little. 

Peeking out from his threadbare waistband, the beetle sigil was burned on his lower back. 

"Tramp stamp. Demonic crest." He said bitterly, straightening his shirt again. 

"I got it when we made our first little bargain. It’s how they brand a tethered demon. Like _cattle_.” He added, with no shortage of biting menace. 

It seemed apparent he didn’t fancy discussing it much.

Carefully, hesitantly, he extended a finger toward the doorknob and gave it a quick, tentative poke. 

Nothing happened. 

All sourness evaporated. 

"SWEET FREEDOM!"

He threw the door open and tore outside like man possessed. An ironic description, come to think of it. 

Lydia watched as Betelgeuse burst out the front door and began a dramatic show of lavishing in his newfound, albeit-restrained freedom, clearly unsurprised by the display occurring on her front lawn. After being cooped up in her little residence for so long, the ghoul had every right to celebrate and, well...he was still Betelgeuse, after all, so that display was certainly bound to attract attention. 

Finally out of the house after so long, he seemed determined to make a fool of himself as largely and publicly as possible. The man needed an audience. 

He frolicked about, skipping and jumping, making an enormous performance out of his gratitude.  
He fell to his knees and kissed the pavement, rolling around and around on the asphalt, dishing out affection to everything in sight. 

He kissed a shrub. He kissed the garbage bin. He kissed the fire hydrant. And the lamp post. And the mailbox. And a pigeon. 

And an unfortunate old woman walking her dog. Fully kissed her, sweeping her into a picturesque dip like a soldier back from war. 

Lydia slowly made her way down the front stoop, her arms crossed as her eyes tracked his excitement from one place to the next, patiently waiting for him to get his fill and reel back in. When the poor elderly woman from down the street found herself in the demon’s crosshairs, Lydia swore internally and quickly approached them, too late to stop him but able to at least offer an apologetic look. 

Once unglued, the woman blushed scarlet. "Oh- oh my-" 

Betelguese shook the poor woman viciously by the shoulders, so roughly that her wig seemed in danger of becoming dislodged. "I'm free! I'm free! Oh, isn't it delightful?!" 

The terrified woman nodded vigorously. "Y-yes, I-I-I-I sup-p-pose." 

Betelgeuse seemed to have the attention span of a squirrel, so eager to explore his new environment. He stopped shaking the lady abruptly and picked up her fat little beagle, hoisting him to face level. 

"Fido, ya heard the news? I'm free, I'm a free man!" 

He kissed the dog on the slobbery mouth, for a disturbingly long time, with darts of tongue (though whose it was unclear). Seemingly finished with the poor thing, like a two dollar whore, he wiped his mouth and pitched the pup haphazardly over his shoulder. The woman barely managed to catch it with a whimper. She looked at Lydia with a mixture of fear and concern. "He's mad! He's crazy!"  
She then took off with a speed of someone half her age, tottering down the high street, continuing to look behind her in horror to make sure she wasn't being pursued. 

Lydia gave her a malcontented shrug as she turned tail.  
“Mad” and “crazy” didn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

Betelgeuse meanwhile took a long deep breath of fresh air, stretched his arms wide and pirouetted like a movie debutante. "The air thing, the sky rats, the trees!" 

The grey sky let out an ominous rumble. This seemed to only heighten the demon's elation. He wheeled around to face his mistress. 

"The _rain_!" He clapped his hands together. "Oh, baby I am BACK IN BUSINESS NOW. I got me a to-do list." 

From his bomber jacket he pulled a large medieval scroll. With no lack of flourish, he unrolled it, beaming, and shoved it in her face.

Lydia only a brief moment to decipher the near-illegible words above what appeared to be a waxy green streak of a crayon. 

"To-Do On Day of Freedom". 

Beneath it lay a single bullet point, besides which was a comically oversized word: 

**FUN.**

She looked up from the page with an arched brow, the corner of her mouth quirked with amusement. 

“Your definition of ‘fun’ tends to run a tad more extreme than mine,” she remarked easily, “but we’ll see. Come on, I’ll show you around before you decide to scare off any more of my neighbors.” 

In an attempt to steer him away, Lydia took ahold of his crooked tie and gave it a brief tug before releasing it. In the midst of his enraptured fascination of his new environment, Betelgeuse allowed himself to be yanked back from Cloud 9 and readjusted his collar on his shirt to a more comfortable, and now even more crooked, position. 

Lydia turned and began to make her way down the street toward the less-residential area of the town, enjoying the building atmospheric pressure of the air that warned of another impending storm. 

As they walked, they caught many stares.  
Betelgeuse beamed and waved energetically to the bemused onlookers, enjoying the thrill of being looked at. The refreshing pleasure of giving people the good old-fashioned creeps. 

After a few minutes, they were enveloped in a spattering of drizzle. 

Lydia lamented quietly that she had forgotten to snag her umbrella from the coat closet before she’d left, but at this point, she was eager to depart and knew that forcing her companion to wait would undoubtedly make him incredibly displeased. She mourned her makeup quietly, unsure if it would be able to survive a heavier downpour yet not quite caring if Betelgeuse had something mocking to say about the inevitable state of dishevelment she was bound to appear in.

 

However, it seemed her companion was more in turn than she perceived. 

The demon made no acknowledgment, but as they turned a corner on the block, a delicate lacy black umbrella was clutched in Lydia's hand, as naturally as if she had picked it up and taken it herself.

Following his lead, she said nothing about the casual act of kindness, instead concealing her barely-reined delight from his attention to detail in the movement of opening the gift to shield herself from the drizzle. She calmly awaited his answer, giving the handle in her hand a casual twirl.

 

As they crossed another narrow suburban street, the demon cast a scathing eye across the gentrified thoroughfare. 

Passing artisanal coffee bars and twenty-four hour ramen restaurants.  
Not a depraved dive of ill repute to be seen. 

With all the time he’d sat inside his little prison, looking out, he observed now that he had greatly oversold to himself the amusements of the outside town.

“What’s there to do around here?”

Lydia had luckily expected such a question. 

“They’re holding some sort of autumn festival today. If you promise not to make a scene like my front, we can take a look, if you want.”  
Betelgeuse pondered her suggestion with a scratch on his chin, momentarily weighing the pros and cons.  
On the one hand, farmers markets and their ilk were sure to be filled with crummy rubes like the Maitlands. On the other, there was a chance of there being country music, which always reminded him of Hell, where it played constantly. 

On a related note, on the one hand, there would likely be no enticing assortment of smokin' hot babes in attendance, but on the other hand- Okay, there was no other hand, he might have to work out that problem later. 

"Hmm.." he grunted, unhelpfully. 

They reached a crossroads, both literally and metaphorically. The smell of pumpkin spice and the sounds of screams from cheap and potentially dangerous carnival contraptions wafted through the air.  
The demon shrugged.  
"I could go for a candied onion.”

“Candied onions?” Lydia wrinkled her nose and gave her eyes a roll, shaking her head. 

“Yeah! Or that dumbass human equivalent you have here on the surface. What the hell is good about apples? They don't even make you cry!" 

"They could if they were bad enough," she offered in a faux-helpful tone as they adjusted their direction, headed toward the sound of pleasant suburban festivities that was about to be intruded upon by a pair of jarringly unpleasant visitors.


	3. Wrath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a peaceful autumn fair is disrupted by quarreling men and an indifferent goat steals the show.

"Hello! Would you like to buy some- Oh... hello."

The ticket man's tepid, friendly customer-service smile slid off his face like a slug on a vertical surface. He ogled their outfits, jaw slack.

Lydia, comfortably accustomed and indifferent to the judgment of her fellow members of society, countered his rude expression with a neutral frown of her own. 

"Gee, howdy, pal-friend! We are two jolly humans interested in your establishment of autumnal amusements, dontcha know." It was impossible for Betelgeuse to have sounded more alien. 

His ridiculous act at channeling the energy of folks like the Maitlands forced Lydia to smother an incredibly unattractive snort of laughter, cutting a warning look at the demon from the corner of her eye that lacked any real bite. 

The ticket seller regained his senses. "For two? Fourteen dollars please." 

It was the demon's turn to go slack-jawed. His voice raised. "Are you nuts?! For that kind of money, I should get a blowjob and two daiquiris the moment I walk in the place."

Lydia felt a small flip of nerves in her chest, silently repeating her words to the sigil and trying to determine if he was about to manipulate a loophole she had overlooked.

The young man in front of them seemed to take some delight in denying these weirdos a small victory. "I'm sorry, sir. Rules are rules." 

Betelgeuse leaned in very close, his palms resting on the desk.  
"Is that so?" His voice was very low indeed. "Because I'm fairly certain we get in for free, and you give us all of your tickets." 

The man's eyes seemed to glaze over. "Of course, how silly of me! Here you go."  
From the drawer at his desk, he unfurled an enormous roll of tickets and deposited them into the demon's waiting hands. 

Betelgeuse pretended to act surprised. 

"Aw, would you look at that, Lyds. He just up and gave us the tickets. Wowzers, incredible huh?" 

He tilted an invisible fedora to the hypnotized employee, who was now looking at his own hand as if he had never seen anything like it. 

"Very kind of you sir, very kind indeed. I bid you good day." 

Taking Lydia's arm, he evaded a sharp glare. "What? He doesn't look hurt to me. Not even frightened. Fit as a fiddle. Stupid human face completely intact." 

Alright, she technically hadn't said he couldn't possess anyone, which was a mostly-harmless activity, but she mentally kicked herself for making such an error, burning him with what she hoped was a particularly singeing glare. She allowed him to take her arm but made no attempt to resist the urge to smack the top of his head with the side of her unfurled umbrella, effectively scattering droplets of rain over him. 

"I don't care if he's hurt or not," she bit back, though the fire in her words was really only half-hearted. "You could have easily conjured up enough money to buy out every stupid market stall here and we _both_ know that. Losing your thick skin?"

Betelgeuse looked affronted. “No! Lay off me. I made the whole process a billion times easier and you know it.” 

“Ugh, whatever.” 

Taking advantage of the arm Betelgeuse had looped through her own, Lydia steered them toward a board that advertised the activities, events, and vendors that had temporarily taken over the usually-vacant lot of concrete. Hypnotists, local bands she'd never heard of, artist's tents with cringe-inducing punny names she knew Delia would've adored, carnival rides, and even a maze constructed out of hay bales were all plastered claustrophobically across the board. The hypnotist, in particular, struck a cord of amusement in her chest — she'd seen genuine possession that would never even begin to compare ( _fool your friends! fun at parties!_ ). 

The demon stood squinting at the little bulletin board, eyeing the array of kiddie amusements with a mutual mixture of humor, apathy, and occasional distaste. 

Though it still looked like fun, they'd barely even set foot in the place before the corniness of the whole thing was starting to seem corny to Betelgeuse. And it had nothing to do with the corn-shucking contest being held at the gazebo. He wondered vaguely if the living had some kind of clinical sex deprivation that required them to exercise their tension through bizarre community gatherings, instead of enjoying the boning and boozing of Netherworld life. It was a case for further investigation. As was "funnel cake." 

Because if it was cake batter in a beer bong, he was 300% up for it. 

Regarding the other amusements, the rides (which barely looked up-to-code) held no appeal to Lydia. While she might have spent many years entertaining an attraction to the notion of death, she wasn't quite prepared to join Betelgeuse and the Maitlands on the other side of the veil. Especially not for something as mortifying as being thrown out of a spinning monkey or catapulted from a frayed harness. The food stalls seemed to be the safest option, so she decided upon one covered in signs beckoning guests with promises of "the best apple cider in all of Connecticut". 

"Maybe I could get something for Delia-dearest," Lydia muttered bitterly, more to herself than consciously to her inhuman companion. Even though it had been many years since the woman had become her stepmother and she'd traversed the rocky waters of her teenage years butting heads with her frequently, her time as an adult had not yet smoothed out all the creases of her distaste for her father's second wife — a fact Delia had accepted without any real qualms.

Betelgeuse chuckled at the mention of Lydia's harpy of a stepmother. 

“I have a good gift in mind.” He nodded cheekily at the Hypnotist. "Worth a swing 'round, wouldn't ya say, babes?" 

They walked arm-in-arm among the throng of the crowd, the demon bent slightly so as to acclimate to her size. 

Betelgeuse set about magically popping every child's balloon as they passed until Lydia caught him and gave him a look that screamed 'knock it off'. So he switched to overturning unsuspecting people's ice cream cones with gusto. 

Their footsteps faltered, however, when Lydia found herself making eye contact with a familiar face standing at the pick-up counter for his order. Unkempt black hair hanging in shadowed dark eyes, the bizarre fashion of a loose-fitting hoodie over khakis, average height and lanky... _oh, god_.

She stiffened instantly as Vincent's features moved from an obviously happily-surprised expression to one of hesitant confusion and insecurity upon spotting Betelgeuse at her side. Lydia sharply pulled against the demon, urging him in a different direction without a second thought. 

"Actually, I saw that there was a petting zoo over here, let's go check that out instead. The line's too long right now anyway; don't feel like waiting around after just getting here."

Betelgeuse had seemed intrigued by the grandiose slogan on the cider stand, though remarked that it wasn't exactly saying much: “I mean, where the fuck is Connecticut anyway? I mean, I know it's in America, but really besides that who the hell cares?" 

Nonetheless, he'd been all set to overturn a large amount of it over somebody for fun, but was suddenly swerved away from his beeline as Lydia mentioned something about animals and started heading toward the little grass paddock like her life depended on it. The demon could do little more than be dragged along behind her. 

"Jeezus, I could have taken care of that line for you." He thrust out his chest with pride. " I _know_ how to clear a room." 

Lydia breathed a quiet sigh of relief. 

Thankfully, the painfully-awkward experience of having to gently explain to Vincent that Betelgeuse was NOT involved with her at _all_ while ALSO avoiding giving her coworker any hope in that realm was evaded. At least for the time being. Vincent was pleasant enough, polite and sharing an interest with her in the works of Edgar Allan Poe and a gloomier sense of fashion, but the young man frankly waxed a little too...

...Well, she wasn't sure _what_ it was that made it so impossible to view him as a potential romantic interest. He was colorless, despite his quietly-sweet temperament, and while he was pleasant to have around as an acquaintance — maybe even a friend — ...it just wouldn't work. She didn't need a crystal ball or tarot cards to predict that much. She had no interest in being worshiped or idolized or put on an unrealistic pedestal she felt as if she could never reach. That just wasn’t her.

She wanted to be _seen_ , nitpicky little flaws and all. Idealism was just another form of invisibility.

The petting zoo was fairly pathetic, but the array of toddlers that swarmed the place seemed to enjoy it, laughing gaily and sprinting after chickens and geese with sticky fingers outstretched. Aside from the poultry, a fat, tired-looking goat stood chewing a mouthful of alfalfa with a world-weary nonchalance. 

As they entered the pen of farm animals, Lydia leaned down to give the goat a sympathetic pat between the shoulders. "You and me both, pal," she murmured conspiratorially, ignoring the dust that clung to her palms from the creature's short coat.

Beneath the rotund goat, two plump little piglets snorted and huffed around on short, thick little legs. 

Recognizing brethren where he saw it, Betelgeuse strode over and hunkered down next to them, squatting on his heels. He put his ear close to one piglet’s snout and nodded, snorting and grunting back like some demonic Doctor Dolittle. 

"Mhm. Aha." He smiled up at Lydia innocently. "She says you're beautiful." 

A sweet moment passed.

Betelgeuse picked up the other piglet and let it snort in his ear. "Oh, don't listen to this one though." He answered a puzzled expression with a mischievous grin.  
"She says you're a prude goth bitch.”

Lydia cocked an eyebrow. "Ah, so one's a flatterer and the other, I suspect, has been marginally paraphrased. Color me shocked-"

“Who’s that?” 

Lydia’s wry amusement died quickly as, out of nowhere, Betelgeuse's playful demeanor dropped. The demon had risen to stand ramrod straight, his eyes locked behind Lydia like a hunting dog in a point, a piglet still wriggling in his hands. 

He had caught sight of Vincent as he moved out of the line, sipping a hot beverage.  
Demonic eyes traced his movements with laser precision. 

Lydia stiffened, internally cursing whoever was in charge of dishing out luck to mortals. Clearly, it was some big joke to give her the shortest end of the stick, and _frequently_.

"Who?" she asked with a falsely-confused innocence that tasted bitter in her mouth. Looking over her shoulder, she made sure her eyes tracked over every portion of the crowd that did NOT include her coworker, as if that would somehow deter her companion’s notice of him.

Betelgeuse only blinked when he was addressed. "What? Huh? Oh, um, nothing. I dunno. I saw someone who looked familiar. Interesting-looking guy. Probably nothing.” 

The young woman eyed the demon with a perplexity that required no effort, as it was entirely genuine. He seemed uncharacteristically evasive, the subject clearly hitting a unique cord with him. 

His sputtering did nothing to prove his innocence as he continued to dig himself into a hole six feet under. 

"He just looked interesting. Interesting guy. Just caught my eye like, woah, what an interesting person. Again, not in a gay way. Not that that's bad. Most people are both ways in the underworld anyway. I mean, I myself have had several- ANYWAY, it's not anything important, forget I said it. He's just probably some normal guy, taking a hot drink back to his truck." 

Her brow furrowed as she tried to keep up with his ramblings, realization finally dawning upon her once he slipped the detail of Vincent's method of transportation. A puzzle piece snapped into place.

"Betelgeuse..," she began cautiously, straightening from her lowered position beside the goat as it wandered off after a child's outstretched cup of 25-cent feed, “how did you know he had a truck?”

"A truck? Did I say that? I meant car- or maybe he doesn't have one. You know he just seems like a truck-driving-kind of guy. Lucky guess, I guess. Do you know him? I sure don't know him. Never stalked him before in my life."

Lydia’s expression grew icy. "You've been...stalking my coworkers?" No, that couldn't be it, he couldn't leave the house. That was impossible. _Unless..._

Her hand lifted up to her face and to unknowingly leave a streak of barnyard dust upon her skin as she felt a headache rise at her temple. 

"What has you in such a fit over Vincent? He gave me a ride home, I preferred that to getting caught in that downpour-"

Wait, why was she explaining herself to him? Why did she even feel that impulse? Even if there had been mutually romantic undertones to Vincent’s gesture ( _there hadn't been_ )...well, it wasn't the demon's concern who she dated or didn't date, or was just-friends with. Why would he even _care_? 

"I'm NOT stalking him, I HAVEN'T been stalking him, that is totally not what is happening. You're not listening to me."

He didn't know exactly what it was she was supposed to not-have-heard when he said that, he only knew that Delia said it all the time ( _"you're not listening, Lydia"_ ) and that it infuriated her stepdaughter. 

Lydia leveled him with a look of distaste, her features hardening as she recognized that the demon was parroting one of Delia's favorite catchphrases. That was a low blow. A cowardly blow. Considering the fact that he claimed to be at LEAST hundreds of years older than her, it was fairly interesting to see him being no more mature than what she had acted like at sixteen. Of course, maturity had never been something she'd associated with him, nor had it been something he claimed to possess. Honestly, she had no reason to be disappointed.

Betelgeuse felt a need to lash out, for some reason. He felt sensitive. His small freedoms had made him bolder.  
What it WAS he had been doing, instead of stalking, he hoped she wouldn't ask, for he had no answer. Meanwhile, outright aggressive denial seemed to be a comfortable tactic to hide behind so far. 

As she facepalmed, with reasonable justification, Betelgeuse seemed to turn an extra shade of puce. 

He thrust a finger at her. 

"Let's get one thing clear, sister, I am NOT in a "fit" over this dumb Vincent guy. I don't care about your stupid human _friends_." He spoke as if the very idea was absurd; as if she was crazy. He spat the word 'friends' with venomous distaste, accompanying it with sardonic finger quotes. 

His eyes narrowed as the last part of what she’d said registered in his mind. "Oh yeah. Giving you a ride? I could give you a ride! I could give you a whole mess of rides out of a downpour, better than some dumbass mortal piece of shit. 'Giving you a ride,'" he repeated derisively, as if he'd never heard anything more idiotic. "Yeah, I _bet_. Like he wasn't trying to put moves on you — men are all alike! He was just waiting to get in your _pants_." Ignoring the irony of this statement, he continued in his vitriol. "Not that I care. I don't care. At ALL. Why would I care- Oh, for fuck's sake.”

As he fumed and ranted about something as hysterically ironic as _questionable ulterior motives_ , she slowly drew herself to her full height — something still laughably lower than his own — and crossed her arms over her chest, a cold breed of anger slowly crawling through her veins. “Right. Because I’m completely unfamiliar with the concept of men attempting to manipulate me with unsatisfactory intentions.” 

A glance over her shoulder in response to Betelgeuse’s darkening attention to something behind her informed Lydia that yes, Vincent had spotted them. Yes, Vincent was visibly trying to decide whether he should approach or not, his expression none-too-subtly bleary and conflicted. Which supernatural power held a vendetta against her? What had she done to deserve this? As soon as she found out, she was certainly going to be a mortal worth fearing. 

The demon rolled his eyes and scoffed as the young beau tentatively approached, turning away coldly.

"Please don't make this-"

She didn't have the opportunity to finish whatever plea she was attempting to make with the unpredictable ghoul at her side, because a soft, hesitant voice at her back cut her off. Luckily enough for him, because it forced her to halt the train of thought concerning his attempt at a “marriage of inconvenience” she had been fully prepared to crash them off-track with. She wasn’t exactly eager to explain that highlight of her life to Vincent at all, let alone with Betelgeuse present and incensed to boot.

"Lydia? I wasn't expecting to see you here." Vincent stood on the other side of the enclosure's temporary fence, his cider absent from his thin hands. "Who is...ah...who's your friend?"

Lydia lifted her dark eyes to the storm-clouds overhead. It was no longer the season for thunderstorms, but maybe she still had a chance of being miraculously struck by lightning? She squinted, as if trying to will a bolt of electricity into existence. 

No dice.

"Who am I? Oh, well, _gee_ , Lydia, thanks for mentioning me to your _‘friend'_ here." Again, the word 'friend' bore hidden daggers. 

Before she could stop him, Betelgeuse pushed Lydia forcibly out of the way, stepping up to square shoulders with the young man. He took off his glasses, the better to stare him down. 

The look on Lydia’s face was deadly enough to strike any living man dead in an instant. Unfortunately, the demon in her crosshairs was already completely devoid of a pulse. 

"Who am I? Funny you should ask, kid. I'm... well, my name's not important." He got a little flustered by his cursed inability to speak his own name but regained his footing quickly. "I'm Lydia's roommate. Her childhood best friend. Her confidant. Her bodyguard. Her B-F-F-F-F forever. AND-!" 

Betelgeuse lavished in the suspense before giving the pièce de résistance.

“I'm her ex-fiancé." 

He flashed a smile that could melt steel beams, taking another step closer.

People were starting to notice the tension. All the chickens had skated to the far end of the paddock, and parents were herding their children elsewhere. 

"So really I think the question here is: Who the hell are YOU, dipshit?"

Lydia’s cold fury vanished in a snap when the words “ex-fiancé” left his mouth. Audibly. In front of someone, _anyone_ , let alone her coworker. This _particular_ coworker. Vincent had flinched away with a bewildered expression, looking between the advancing man and the woman he was so fond of, blinking rapidly as if seeing her for the first time. 

“Call him Betel,” Lydia supplied to Vincent in a voice that sounded alien in her own ears. As if she were underwater, or listening to a recording of herself play from another room.

“F-fiancé?” His voice was pitifully strangled, his skin impossibly, ghastly pale. He seemed to recover somewhat, feeling safe with the protection of the barrier separating them, and the next time he spoke his tone was still quiet, yet significantly more stable. “ _Ex_ -fiancé. I see.”

There was a strange, cryptic tone to his words. An odd look in his eye. The moment quickly passed.

Betelgeuse seemed to ooze self-satisfaction watching Vincent stammer and retreat. "Yeah. Ex-Fiancé, _punk_. AKA, almost hitched; AKA, a lot closer to that snatch then YOU ever got." The demon ignored the sounds of disgust this warranted, not only from his mortified friend but from the now-enraptured crowd that encircled them. Now on a roll, he leaned towards the man in front of him, his voice pitched too low for anyone but him to hear. “‘Plus...Betel’ ain’t all she calls me.”

Lydia was entirely unsurprised by Betelgeuse’s sharp left-turn into utterly disgusting sexual innuendo. Frankly, she was shocked it hadn’t come sooner. The vulgarity was outwardly received by the mortal woman with merely a repulsed scoff, pointedly ignoring the mortified flush that tinted her cheeks and attempting to fiercely will it away. 

On the other hand, Vincent’s scandalized reaction was undoubtedly pure gasoline to the demon’s out-of-control dumpster fire of impulse. She had no idea what had been whispered between the two but based upon her coworker’s flustered response, it was beyond a doubt that whatever had been exchanged between the two of them had been dangerously close to the last straw for poor, fragile, stupidly-well-meaning Vincent. 

The man struggled to collect himself for a moment. “My name is Vincent. I’ve worked with Lydia for almost six months, now. I’m her _friend_. I’ve never seen you around before…‘Beetle’. And you’re right,” he added with the smug ghost of a smile, clearly feeling daring, “...she’s never mentioned you before.” 

Betelgeuse snorted derisively at his well-meaning rebuttals. "Oh, you're COWORKERS, La-de-fuckin-da." He mimed jerking himself off. Attempting to seem unfazed, yet this douchebag seemed to think he had the upper hand anyhow. “Maybe she didn't want to make you jealous that she has a REAL man already _in_ her life. Maybe she doesn't NEED another weasel-faced stink rat sniffing around her skirt. She's already GOT one!" 

Lydia had never regretted agreeing to something more. Of all the things that could have gone wrong, she’d never pictured this outcome. Like a character in a damn New York Times Y.A novel, two men — one of which she’d expected better of, the other she was merely disappointed in herself for holding her own unrealistic expectations for — were currently making a scene over her. She couldn’t care less about the prying, horrified eyes around them, but the thought of having to work a shift with Vince after this fiasco made her want to find the nearest bridge and take a brisk plunge.

“Stop.” Her voice was flat, her attention fixed squarely on Betelgeuse, yet the word was clearly intended for both participants. 

She refused to say “please”, refused to beg, knew that she’d let a demon off his leash and this was the price she would have to pay for it. 

Lydia dared a step closer to the heated exchange. “Would the two of you-” She stopped herself when she saw the look in Betelgeuse’s eyes. No, he was entirely deaf to her at that moment. She recognized that. But clearly, she needed to do SOMETHING, because things were starting to tiptoe toward physically violent consequences and she was quickly losing faith in the strength of the pact in keeping an out-of-control demon tethered. “Knock it off!”

Lydia’s protests fell on deaf ears. Outside the pact, Betelgeuse didn't have to answer to her. Her voice was little more than a mosquito buzzing — he was too steamed up to care how she felt. 

_This kid thought he was hot shit?_

He put his hands on Vincent's chest and shoved, hard. 

The small crowd gasped as Vincent staggered backward, struggling pitifully to keep his balance. Clearly intent upon serving the unneeded role of White Knight, he stubbornly approached the fence once more, hovering just out of reach this time, yet still close enough to attempt to faze his challenger.

“Betelgeuse, _stop_.” No shorted name, no disguise of something more human-sounding. She clearly needed to get his attention. 

"Oh shut up, I'm not going to HURT him." His voice lowered as he addressed Vincent directly: "You're fucking lucky too. If this little lady weren't here to save your ass, _o-hoooo boy_. I just wanna SCARE ya a little."

He gave a dark little chuckle. The demon jerked his body as if about to strike, laughing raucously at how the young man flinched away instantly.

"OOh! You freaked out? You real scared of the spooky man? Aw, poor baby, awe you afwaid of the big bad wolf? Maybe you should stay in your fucking lane and the HELL away from my girl. Unless you're wanting some trouble."

“How could you speak like this? Act like this? How could someone as lowly _disgusting_ as you have had an opportunity to spend life with someone like her? And _wasted_ it, clearly! It’s no wonder that things were ended between the two of you! How could Lydia have ever chosen someone with a character as absurdly revolting as yours? She knows she deserves far better than a common lowlife!”

Even in his flimsy human facade, the true demon was beginning to tear through in the demon's comportment. Pure, unbridled ire turned his voice to an unearthly snarl, his eyes flashing madly, spit flying from his lips as he spoke, like a mad beast. 

"'Deserves far better'? What, like YOU?!" He threw back his head and laughed, cold and primal in a way that sent a near-tangible shiver around the place. 

"You have some NERVE kid. You have no IDEA what Lydia wants. You stupid mortal prick. YOU have no FUCKING clue. You don't know what she's been through, and frankly, that's none of your FUCKING business, you human _scum_."

Betelgeuse grabbed the collar of Vincent's shirt, pulling him almost nose to nose.

"You're just coming into her life thinking she needs a knight in shining fuckin' armor. I know your kind. I could OBLITERATE YOU. YOU HAVE NO IDEA. Stupid dumb boys who think they know EVERYTHING. But all you are is A COWARDLY, WORTHLESS BREATHER IN FUCKIN' KHAKIS." 

Alright. That was more than enough.

Summoning up all the stubborn bravery she possessed, Lydia shoved her way forcefully into the small space between the two men, her back to Vince and her front to Betelgeuse. Her face was frozen and emotionless, but the raging flames of anger in her golden-brown glare conveyed plainly that the demon was in considerably over his head with her. 

It took an impressive amount of force to break the demon's talon-like grip on the poor fellow's collar and split the two men apart from where they reared to smack antlers like fighting bucks.  
Even as Lydia spoke to him, Betelgeuse's yellow eyes did not retreat from Vincent's for a good few seconds of a silent, threatening stare. Lydia's wrath did finally strike enough fear in him to get his attention, however. Even in her tiny little human package, she radiated pure, murderous rage with every atom in her body. 

“Unless you missed your own memo,” she bit out cooly, her voice frigid and icy, “I’m not ‘your girl’.” She held up the hand that had once held his cursed ring all those years ago, wiggling her fingers to make her point crystal clear. “I don’t belong to _anyone_ , especially not someone who fails to see past his own hulkingly-overcompensating ego and decides to make a scene in the middle of a fucking petting zoo.” 

When she raised her hand, clearly void of a wedding ring, it was the demon’s turn to flinch. 

Feeling particularly daring now that she was fueled by her own blazing anger and frustration, she crowded into the ghoul’s space and gave his chest a solid shove. “If you really think your biggest worry right now is trouble from _Vince_ , you’re not clearly not paying attention.” Another harsh shove, her breath now clawing savagely at her chest. She ignored it. She was furious. Absolutely livid. And she was going to indulge it and let it consume her for a delicious moment that she would undoubtedly pay for. 

His eyes widened as she descended upon him with a torrential wave of reprimands. Though she was comically small and childlike in her frantic little pushes against him, each one shunted him back another foot, as if they had been as powerful as a freight train. 

“The two of you could not be _less_ appealing to me right now.”

Vincent looked stricken, as if she’d shoved him rather than Betelgeuse. With her back turned to him, something dark and pained crept through his gaze, the shadows beneath his eyes darkening almost imperceptibly, his cheeks a little more shallow, something rustling at his back just out of sight...but the clouds shifted, and he appeared normal once more. A trick of the light.

"What?! That's not fair! You're COMPARING ME TO THIS HUMAN DWEEB?!" 

A tense, ominous silence suffocated the fairgrounds. Not a single person spoke. Even the chickens seemed to quiet down, the garish carnival music seemly falling to a faint mumble in the background of the powerful moment.

Lydia wanted to look away. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to turn tail and put as much distance as possible between herself and the unhinged demon she was currently standing toe-to-toe with. If she’d been a normal person, with a normal past and a normal family, she might have listened. The look in his eyes was feral and wild, a predatory sense of danger rolling off of his tense form in suffocating waves, decades’ worth of caged malice and the denial of his true nature finally unleashed. His chest heaved in breaths that rattled from shouting, a sound that sent a chill down her spine.

At one point it looked like Vincent was about to speak, but a sharp turn of the head and a death stare from the demon relapsed him back into a wise silence. 

The barnyard animals, at least, possessed the shreds of common sense that Lydia had long since destroyed and left for dead. The creatures, recognizing that their position on the food chain was located far below the threat they were trapped in an enclosure with, vacated the immediate area to cluster at the furthest corner of the pen (save for the dispassionate goat, of course). 

She was no fragile lamb. She might not have been a supernatural demon from hell, might’ve just been a slight and laughably mortal girl, but she was capable of being every inch a wolf that Betelgeuse was, even if her fangs weren’t nearly as sharp and her bark a little less chilling. Perhaps no true match existed that was capable of overpowering him through strength and demonic powers alone, but she’d be cold in her grave before the day she willingly bared her throat in submission to anyone in a fight, let alone a demon throwing a ridiculous, irrationally-jealous tantrum.

As he tore his murderous glare from Vincent to fix solely upon her, she felt a deep shudder crawl down her spine, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She stubbornly held her place in front of her coworker, feeling infuriatingly small and weak between the two of them, yet not allowing the notion to show visibly on her face. 

"So...that's it, then?" He spoke very low. Almost hushed. A sinister wheeze. "You've made your point clear. I get it. I get it!" He put up his hands. "Fine. FINE." 

His voice took such a sharp turn into a shout that everyone in the vicinity seemed to jolt slightly from the shock of it. The goat actually stopped chewing and looked up to see what had caused such a commotion. 

"FINE. YOU WANT TO BE LIKE THAT. CHOOSE HIM. CHOOSE YOUR STUPID HUMAN NORMAL GUY. FINE..." 

Betelgeuse began to shout, his words dripping with a savage breed of anger, and Lydia felt her own anger rise to meet his, her mouth opening as she prepared to fiercely reprimand him for stupid remarks about her “choosing” anyone, after she’d just plainly stated that she was feeling rather cold towards BOTH of them at the moment, but the new expression that spread slowly across his barely-human features made her jaw snap shut, her blood freezing in her veins. 

She’d seen that look on his face before. Oftentimes, it was the only prelude, the only red-flag warning that mischief of the debatably-malicious variety was impending. The only difference in this particular circumstance, the only reason she felt her heart stutter and trip to a halt within her chest, was that not _once_ had he ever directed it toward _her_. At least...not since they’d first met, before the nature of their relationship had become amicable and benevolent. For the first time, Lydia took a step back from Betelgeuse, trying to remind her lungs that she needed air in order to continue functioning properly. 

"Go ahead,” he continued, that horrible little grin darkening his features. “But you know what they say...I guess love really is BLIND." 

In an instant, Lydia’s world was black. A tight pressure bit into her cheekbones, her eyelashes brushing rapidly against...fabric? A blindfold.

"If nothing is IN your sight, then I can't be OUT of it. SEE YA, SUCKER."  
A loud crack, a collective gasp from those observing the scene. Her hands flew up as her spine hit the fence, the contact jarring through her body as she attempted to rip the ribbon away, panic trembling violently through her shoulders. Before she had the chance to make the effort of ripping it away, the fabric disintegrated beneath her scrambling fingertips as it had been made of paper all along, fluttering mockingly to the ground in tattered shreds around her feet. The chickens were flapping about wildly, feathers drifting all around.

Betelgeuse was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment telling us if the format works! New chapters will come as soon as we can edit them. Possibly every-other week or sooner.


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